It may take several weeks (or longer) to identify your three reviewers and then a similar period of time to complete the entire evaluation process.

Although scores and certain internal, "eyes-only" reviewer comments will not be released to authors, many reviewers submit comments that the author might find useful.

These comments can be released to authors upon request

Notes on reviewer comments:

Comments are primarily meant to communicate evaluation details to the Awards Directors

When released to the author, these comments will not be edited for "tact or diplomacy" beforehand.

In other words, be prepared for direct and unedited reviewer critiques, comments and observations if you ask to see them!

STEP 3. Review and Awards

MWSA Reviews

Our No. 1 reviewer will write a review of your book

Within a few weeks after all reviewers have finished reading and scoring your book, we'll let you know that your MWSA review has been added to your book's listing in our online library.

No matter how well--or how poorly--a book scores, all authors will retain the right to have their book and/or MWSA review removed from our website.

MWSA's main goal will always be to help our member authors.

Our reviews are normally oriented toward that goal, and as such should not be considered "critical" reviews.

We prefer not to post any review detrimental to an author's book marketing efforts.

However, in order to maintain the credibility and consistency of our Review and Awards system, books that score below a minimum threshold will be handled as follows:

The MWSA Awards Director will notify the author that the final average score of their book did not reach our minimum standard.

At this time, the director will go over some of the main problem areas identified by our reviewers and offer the author the chance to receive a copy of reviewer comments and observations--but not the actual scores.

Books that fail to reach our minimum threshold score must have reviews that mention some of these problems found.

Authors will be able to see the draft review and decide whether or not they'd like to have us publish it on our website.

MWSA will not "negotiate" with authors with respect to the content of our review.

MWSA will not normally refund a submission fee in the case where the author decides that our review should not posted on our website.

MWSA Awards

Whereas MWSA reviews are focused on helping our member authors, our awards are determined based on an objective and critical evaluation of each submitted book.

Books do NOT compete against each other, but against a rigorous, numerical scoring standard.

See our Details Page for more background information on our evaluation and scoring process

About two months after the submission window closes (in July or August), MWSA Awards Finalists will be announced

Being an Award Finalist means your book has scored high enough for an award

Even if your book's score doesn't qualify for an award, its review can appear on our website

Specific individual award winners (Gold, Silver and Bronze), as well as Special Recognition Awards (such as our Founder's and President's Awards and the MWSA Writer of the Year) will be announced at our MWSA Awards Conference

MWSA will work with winning authors who need packages mailed overseas on an individual basis.

If an award-winning book has more than one author, extra medals, stickers (and postage, if necessary) can also be purchased in our online store.

These extra medals and/or stickers can be purchased any time after the announcement of Awards Finalists, but before the awards ceremony if you'd like us to present the extra awards materials during the awards banquet.

Note that my Amazon account had my personal gift card balance, resulting in a $0.00 Order total—you may not be so lucky. :-)

Click for expanded view of screenshot

The above procedure is for Kindle eBooks only

If you're sending a combination of paper and e-book versions of your book (because one or more of your reviewers accepts/prefers eBooks), you'll only need to send one gift per reviewer accepting eBook format.

The other reviewer(s) will need a paper copy mailed to them at the address provided.

You do not need to send more than one format (i.e. softcover and Kindle) to any one reviewer.

Once we receive your gift certificate(s) via email, we’ll forward to the applicable reviewers and send you a short email letting you know that’s happened.

Other eBook Options

If the above Amazon Gift Certificate option is not possible, the Awards Directors will work with authors to try to come up with an acceptable solution to get your eBook to our reviewers.